triple citrus coffee cake

The name of this is somewhat deceiving – I imagine a coffee cake to have a light crumb, some kind of brown sugar topping, and to distinctly be….cake-like. But this Martha (yes, I refer to her as Martha – is there really any Martha besides Stewart?) coffee cake, a yeast dough studded with lots of citrus zest and filled with cream cheese, is really much more of a modified cinnamon bun recipe. The dough is quite similar and the swirl (though in one large and strangely shaped piece instead of separate pieces) evokes buns.

Unfortunately the recipe isn’t online officially, but another industrious blogger copied the full recipe from Martha’s book The New Classics (or whatever issue of the magazine it appeared in). See the recipe and instructions here. I reduced the amount of poppy seeds by about half (it just seemed like overkill) and skipped the egg wash (hence my end product is not as shiny) but otherwise I followed the recipe completely. It was a huge hit at the brunch party I took it to, and I have to say, quite tasty (given how much work it was to make, I was glad of that). Thanks Martha!

I would say this is a good recipe for New Year’s Day, but who am I kidding? You won’t be making this hungover. Perhaps it will do on January 2?